First off let's start by saying that Reflector is a great tool to have in your toolkit either standalone or as a VS Plugin.

Second, lets get to some real, fair and concise facts about this new transition that Reflector will undergo with Version 7.

To the Good folks at RedGate and it's loyal user base. I come to you today to plead for a common sense approach to your decision to make Reflector a Paid For Software Asset.

Over the years starting with Mr. Roeder initial release of a substantial tool to the .Net Community, Reflector has found it's way in many developers toolkits. No matter if a Hobbyist, Part-Time, Full-Time, In-House or Government Code Shop, Many have been using Reflector for more years then RedGate has had rights to call it their own.

I myself have had the need to maintain having Reflector in my toolkit and quite frankly it is one of the first tools I install upon each fresh installation of any Dev Box.

We have seen several post that would indicate that your recent announcement to make Reflector a Paid for Product has sparked some protest that takes various points.

I myself clearly state that while the proposed $35.00 fee is indeed modest and affordable to many, that the very nature of how you have choose to go about your introduction of and demise of the New and Old Reflector acquisition modals needs to be rethought as maybe, just maybe your tactic is without clear thought to potential repercussions on your intent to capture revenue from Reflector.

While I agree and understand this, Mr Roeder was a one man band that created and made available a much needed tool, his creation was so good that really no one even tried to do better hence why still this many years later there is not a true mature and stable replacement for reflector.

I understand that RedGate must have had to compensate Mr Roeder for the rights to even assume authority of this fine product. Also, that over the years as a Commercial Entity, unlike Mr Roeder who was doing this in his spare time and was the single most developer in that regards, RedGate has indeed made substantial investment in the attempt to keep Reflector Free. (Come on guys, Like it or not this is true, It cost money to keep this software out here, updated and moving forward free or not).

While I myself state and many other have here as well, I personally have no issue paying $35.00 to keep myself happy with reflector in my Toolkit. Also, I would surmise that many who are here tearing you guys a new one would also not have a problem with that.

The problem here is it would appear that you are going to use the timebomb feature of Reflector to FORCE your loyal user base to PAY you Money. We all know that the reason Mr Roeder added that feature as clearly stated by himself was to keep users always having the latest stable release and minimize the headache of having to support different versions of his creation. Smart Move on his part, Bad move on yours and would effect have you breeching your own licensing agreement for the current schema of releasing the free version of Reflector.

So We petition RedGate to apply logic here and state our case as follows.

1. Prior to releasing version 7 Disable the Timebomb Feature allowing that last version of the Free Reflector to be perpetual.
2. Step up your game with development, add new features and improve upon the codebase. Stay in step with the .NET Framework and it's evolution. This in itself will eventually render the last Free version useless as it is almost certain that the framework will evolve beyond what the gratis version would support. Microsoft Promises you this, It's what they do, Evolve!!!
3. Recognize that the way you have chose to go here is already chopping at your hopes for Paid Conversion, This in short is a marketing and publicity nightmare for RedGate and by the post on this forum your almost certain to loose customers that you would want to convert.
4. Recognize that as a Commercial entity that supports developers efforts that you can never loose their faith and trust. You do that and you loose customers and potential conversions and all that is $$$$.
5. Remember all the multi developer shops and create a fair multi-licensing schema for them. Volume discounts and site licensing can make you more bucks.

Notice that I intentionally avoided the bashing and whiny topics, Fellow developers that will get us nowhere. Sure, they will know but what will they do?

Common dialog is in order here not a bunch of bashing, name calling and false statements.

FACT 1.

Bottom line is that we must acknowledge that RedGate never once promised to make it free forever. They only hinted that they would still make a Free version available for download.No where in that statement did it say it would be for life.

FACT 2.

Reflector was never a Open Source Product. Mr Roeder never ever released the source code to the community. Think about this, He obviously knew that he could sell this to another entity because he protected the codebase. So calls for an open source release are premature at best.

FACT 3.

RedGate has invested plenty of time and money into keeping a free version here for us. There is a big difference of a Company vs a one man shop doing something. The Free version modal does not work for every company so we should compare apple to apple not RedGate to RedHat.

FACT 4.

Many of us are paid developers that either work for someone or hire our services out for a fee. SHAME on you for thinking that another group of developers should GIVE you something that you use to make MONEY. Fair is Fair....

So with that said, RedGate Please concede to this petition request in regards to 1 thru 5 withstanding.

PStewart wrote:1. Prior to releasing version 7 Disable the Timebomb Feature allowing that last version of the Free Reflector to be perpetual.

+1000 for that!

Unfortunately, given what I've seen so far, the only response you're likely to get to that point is, "v7 will have a perpetual licence..."

I hope someone from RedGate manages to understand this before it's too late:
* We don't care if v7 has a perpetual licence;
* We don't care if v7 removes the time-bomb;
* We don't care if Lutz added the time-bomb before 2008 yadda-yadda-blah-blah;
* We just want to continue using v6 for as long as it meets our needs.

The evolution of .NET will eventually make v6 obsolete, and the new features in v7 look quite promising, but don't kill off v6 just to make money!

PStewart wrote:1. Prior to releasing version 7 Disable the Timebomb Feature allowing that last version of the Free Reflector to be perpetual.

+1000 for that!

Unfortunately, given what I've seen so far, the only response you're likely to get to that point is, "v7 will have a perpetual licence..."

I hope someone from RedGate manages to understand this before it's too late: * We don't care if v7 has a perpetual licence; * We don't care if v7 removes the time-bomb; * We don't care if Lutz added the time-bomb before 2008 yadda-yadda-blah-blah;* We just want to continue using v6 for as long as it meets our needs.

The evolution of .NET will eventually make v6 obsolete, and the new features in v7 look quite promising, but don't kill off v6 just to make money!

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector. We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector. We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

Wow. And here I thought that the most comptemptuous thing that Red Gate could do in response to the overwhelming amount of negative feedback it is receiving is to not respond to it all, like they have been doing. But Greg has proved there is something much worse: respond in an utterly patronizing fashion that completely ignores all of the relevant issues.

@PStewart, well laid out and exactly to the point. Thank you for this concise post.

@Greg.Tillman, wow. I must say that I'm just speechless. As far as I can tell this is the one and only answer apart from "the timebomb has always been here" to the issues raised. This just feels like another slap in the face. You (RedGate) don't seem to be taking anyone here seriously but the few ones asking how the licensing model can somehow be made to work for them.

Why should I give you money if I'm treated that way? Will you be taking me any more serious if I pay the 35$? And what about the legal license agreement between you and me regarding V6? You're obviously breaking it by timebombing V6, why should I assume that you'll not do the same with the next license?

I have been the one evaluating tools in our company and my recommendation led to us buying a SQL Toolbelt, 5 SQL Prompt bundles and 5 SQL Developer bundles, all with some maintenance attached to them. But as it seems even though I have been a well paying customer this is not enough to be taken seriously by RedGate. You don't seem to care at all, you've got my money, right? I guess I learnt my lesson, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector.We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

@Greg:

Please - in all earnestness, I ask you to answer this one question:

In exactly what ways does RedGate believe leaving the timebomb active in v6 supports the long term interests of Reflector?

Greg, honestly, if you're going to be so patronizing and ignore the problem when responding, it would be better if you didn't respond at all or brought in someone else from Redgate to take comments.

You really seem to be enjoying the frenzy and adding gas to the blaze with comments like this and randomly shouting out how the paid version doesn't have a time bomb anymore, when no one is even complaining about that.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector. We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

@Greg:

Please - in all earnestness, I ask you to answer this one question:

In exactly what ways does RedGate believe leaving the timebomb active in v6 supports the long term interests of Reflector?

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector. We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

@Greg:

Please - in all earnestness, I ask you to answer this one question:

In exactly what ways does RedGate believe leaving the timebomb active in v6 supports the long term interests of Reflector?

I'd like to repeat this question.

And now I'd simply like to point out that RedGate is completely ignoring this fair question.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. We really do appreciate the care you’ve taken to lay out the facts and the passion you and all the other people in this forum display for Reflector. We hope that we have made a decision in the long term interests of tool and I really hope that you will remain a user for years to come.

@Greg:

Please - in all earnestness, I ask you to answer this one question:

In exactly what ways does RedGate believe leaving the timebomb active in v6 supports the long term interests of Reflector?

I'd like to repeat this question.

And now I'd simply like to point out that RedGate is completely ignoring this fair question.

Personally, I take this continued avoidance to mean that you folks are simply blowing smoke up our arses and don't really give a flying eff you see kay what we think.

Good thing is, doesn't matter. Alternatives are quickly maturing and we won't have any significant loss of ability dumping RedGate entirely.

RedGate's decision maker, who decided to make it paid. Burn out in the fire of our rage and read ReSharper team's message to you:

Good news is that we’re preparing a standalone binary-as-a-source application, i.e. a decompiler + assembly browser to explore whatever .NET compiled code is legal to explore. We don’t have any specific date for release, but it’s going to be released this year, and it’s going to be free of charge. And by saying “free”, we actually mean “free”.